So, a few weeks ago I bought a copy of Simplify3D, because I had heard great things about it.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s actually producing any better output than Slic3r does for me.
Am I wrong? Thinking about returning it, I think I’m still in the return period for it.
Simplify3d needs tuning like any other slicer. But you are right slic3r got a lot better in the last year or so.
But try a part in simplify3d that needs support. You might just be hooked after trying custom supports 
Yeah - the big thing that Simplify3D excels in is single-material support generation.
I did do one thing that used support. It might have been a little better than Slic3r but not that much. Also I do exclusively mechanical parts and it’s extremely rare that I actually need support. Or if I do, I actually design it into the part itself. I can design better support for the part than software can generate.
I’d guess that not more than 1 in 100 parts that I print actually need support.
Shoot, I thought it was 30 days money back. Turns out it’s only 2 weeks. I guess I have some useless software then, unless they’ll let me transfer the license.
I had a part that I printed a few days ago that it utterly failed at, in the support area. I’ve printed it before in Slic3r, and I tried it here also and Slic3r printed the thing beautifully. The S3D printed copy was a disaster.
Try slicing something with millions of faces, you’ll find Slic3r will probably also flake out, where Simplify3D won’t.
@ThantiK Not really something I do. Silly to keep a $150 piece of software that I’ll never need. I ONLY ever print mechanical parts. My typical print has maybe 20K to at most 100k faces.
I’ve seen Slic3r crash occasionally, but I just restart it and it’s fine. I’ve never had anything I couldn’t print with it.
I guess it’s all about the tools you know. But I would say if tuned properly I get the best prints from simplify3D compared to other slicers. It has some features that others just don’t let me control.
Sorry to hear you don’t like it. Their support has been good for me. If you email them they might still be able to work but out a credit.
Ditto - can’t remember who did the slicer roundup but Simplify3D regularly came out on top. This isn’t some sort of confirmation bias either – I haven’t even bought a copy. We just had our boss buy a copy for work, and we’re free to use whatever we want. Simplify3D blew everything out of the water hands down.
I’d really like to see Netfabb as a slicer, and what it outputs compared to Simplify3D.
I also had questions about Simplify 3d after purchase. I’ve had stable results with Cura, in comparison.
I got with their support with that exact question in mind (did I just waste my money) and their support is indeed there for you. Their words to me were that I didn’t just buy the software, I bought their support to fit anything I need with it, including print quality, etc.
Agreed, it’s a little pain on the learning curve but it definitely has potential and has become my go to print tool.
I print mechanical parts all the time with S3D. It gives me a level of control I don’t get with other programs, though other programs have their strengths too. I like that it’s more cohesive and it’s 10 X faster and looks like it was designed this decade rather than the previous decade.
For me it was a noticable step up in print quality when i switched from Sli3er to S3D. I am not fully happy with some of their workflow decisions, but over all it is ok.
Yeah if theyd offer a demo i would try it. But nahhh slic3r is the way to go
@ThantiK Angus from Makers Muse did a slicer round up a while back… may not be the one your thinking of but it’s an ok showdown.
In most cases that I’ve tried so far, in many ways Simplify is producing significantly worse output than Slic3r. Probably I have some tuning thing to do, but I honestly never did much to Slic3r. Just set the nozzle and filament diameter. Lots of mucking around with custom GCode for startup, but I had to do that to get Simplify to work too and it is irrelevant to the quality of the print.
I’ve been using S3D for a while and at first I was like WTF’s going on here. But like others have said, it’s a matter of getting used to it and tuning. I was going to point out the same thing @ThantiK mentioned in that it’s really fast at slicing.
I try to avoid using supports, but when you have to I think S3D is pretty solid.
Some nuances I’ve noticed is that sometimes when in the machine control panel when I click the tabs it seems to show the wrong tab (on Mac). I also bring the hotend up to temp and extrude a little and sometimes when I go to print it’ll just sit there (and there’ll no longer be any communications in the comm window).
But overall I wouldn’t go back.
Worth noting, S3D and Slic3r use very different extrusion volume calibration techniques. If you do your usual Slic3r thing – measuring single wall box thickness to tune extrusion volume – S3D will output weak, gappy prints, because it uses a different definition of extrusion width in the volume calculation math. The S3D method is actually more flexible across a wider range of width/height ratios but you have to calibrate extrusion volume with 100% infill calibration boxes instead of single-wall boxes. (For example, Slic3r doesn’t do extrusion width = nozzle diameter printing very well, but S3D does them just fine.)
i’ve been using slic3r for a while now, i’ve tried a bunch of other ones like cura, mattercontrol, craftware, etc… i finally settled on slic3r and have only looked back when i needed supports. i think it’s the software’s weakest point. other than that it gives me incredible quality printing and control over anything i’d want.
but i found @Ryan_Carlyle 's last comment about different extrusion techniques to be interesting and i looked around and could not find a single video/written review/comparison that i thought was objective or really went the length to give each software it’s best attempt for best results and comparing those.
so just for better supports, i can’t justify paying 150$.
but, has anyone used both slic3r and simplify3d extensively and can point out significant differences that affect part/print quality and mechanical properties?